Anti-Taliban cleric killed as suicide blasts rock Pakistan

LAHORE: Suicide bombers attacked a mosque and a religious school within minutes on Friday in two Pakistani cities, killing at least five people including a prominent Muslim cleric who had recently condemned the Taliban, officials said.

Pakistan has been rocked by a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks in recent weeks blamed on militants taking revenge for a military operation against the Taliban in the northwest Swat Valley region.

In the country's east, an assailant went into the offices of the well-known Jamia Naeemia seminary in the heart of Lahore shortly after the end of traditional Friday prayers and detonated a bomb, police official Sohail Sukhera said. Two people died and 6 were wounded.